


His Heartstrings

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the age of 5 Sherlock Holmes first saw the instrument that would become the one constant in his life for a very long time.This is the emotions in his life lived trough his violin.</p><p>If you take care of someone or something, they will take care of you in return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Heartstrings

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in 2012, between THoB and TRF, so this is why it is the way it is. I recently found it and tweaked it (mark that season 3 hasn't impacted the events), and have decided to post it. This is my very first BBC Sherlock fanfiction, hope you like it!!  
> Not beta'ed

Sherlock first laid eyes on a violin when he was 5 years old, closing up on 6. He can't remember why he had accompanied his mother and Mycroft to the music store, but he had, and he had wandered a bit away from them and further into the store. That's where he'd seen it. Hanging on the wall, all glossy polished wood and fine strings, accompanied by a bow. He looked at it and thought it looked rather astounding. His young mind, already far above average even at such a young age, supplied him with the obvious observations of the most logic uses of the bow upon the strings. He idly recalled the orchestra at the high class social gathering a couple of months back, and his minds eye drew up a picture of a light haired woman wielding the instrument displayed before him. He picked the sound out from the complete composition and found his insatiable curiosity to be piqued.  
He heard his mother call and returned to her side. When he reached his mother he pointed to the violin and asked what it was.  
"It's a violin, dear,” said the woman behind the desk instead. "It's a very beautiful instrument, and if you take care of it, it'll take care of you." that was all the woman had cryptically said to him, then his mother had left with his brother, and he dutifully followed as he was expected to, his mind turning her comment over and over trying to make sense of it.  
From that moment he had been hooked, though a series of events regarding certain unfortunate chemical reactions buried the thought for a while, but they would soon resurface.

***

It was when his father asked him if he wanted anything in particular for his 7th birthday that he finally, fully, remembered the violin once more. The violin hanging on the wall of the shop he had visited a little over a year ago. It was surely sold by now, but of course it was not the only one in existence.  
He had wanted to ask for a new chemistry set. He had blown up the last one (along with most of his previous bedroom unfortunately), and wanted one with actual chemicals this time (the blowing up part was a mystery to everyone except Sherlock, who hadn't admitted to "borrowing" from the schools supplies and mixing them with his own "safe for children (meaning boring)" chemistry set). But he didn't ask for one, for the minute he was about to say it the violin dropped into his head and his mind and memory supplied those sounds once more, and he felt his fingers itch to lay upon those strings. It dug deep within his brain and settled there, growing until he had a need to hold it, to feel that wooden instrument, to learn to play it and master it like he had done to so many other things before.  
"A violin." was his simple answer, before leaving his father, his mother, and his brother rather baffled in his wake. They would later discuss the remarkable request of their youngest son, but in the end they both agreed it was an acceptable gift for him. Violinists were highly regarded, and they had faith he would not loose interest in it too quickly as he was so prone to do.

***

His 7th birthday came and went, and he got his violin (the fact that none of his classmates came didn't bother him, not that they were invited, and when Mycroft ate most of the cake he smirked. He also revealed 3 affairs and 5 national secrets among the adult guests. He got sent to his room the minute they all left).  
Up in his room he took the violin out of it's case and ran his hands over it. It was smooth and it was glossy, like he remembered it. Plucking the strings experimentally to file away the sounds they made individually he reached for the bow. He'd done some research on the violin and now he sat the notes he'd gotten up in the windowsill. He placed the violin on his shoulder, rather awkwardly due to the strange feeling of having something rest there. The first notes that came from it were screeches, and the whole house stopped for a breath, many thinking that he had brought a cat into his room again (last time was not pretty and would be preferred not to be repeated. In his defence, how was he to know the cat’s body language when he’d never studied it before.)  
He stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again.

***

Over the next year he practices every day. The violin sits awkwardly on his bony shoulder, but his fingers are quick and elegant in their movements, having built muscle memory to glide almost effortlessly trough the different positions. He masters it in the end, with a bit of personal triumph and pride. He commits certain compositions to memory, but prefers playing on a whim, plucking out bits and pieces from different works and adding in his own. He takes care of her (somewhere along the way 'it' became 'her', he doesn't remember when or why, but he doesn't mind), and in turn she takes care of him. She's there every time his classmates turn him away, talk behind his back, exclude him, make fun of him, and beat him up for revealing his observations. He will never admit to the sadness he feels, and over time he will come to believe it himself. She's there when he needs her, and he will pick her up with care none would think him capable of. From her he draws melodies, some recognizable now and again, and some foreign, completely his own. The melodies are melancholy, packed with all the despair of an eight year old genius, and come in all hours of the day. No matter what they can't stop him playing, when he gets the urge to pick her up he does, and he plays the music his mind supplies him with. It is his way of expressing what he wills away to the furthest corners of his mind. Feelings, he decide, is far too tedious and messy to deal with. He is far above any of the sort. 

***

When he's 16 he works his first case. The police won't listen, says he's too young, but he knows. He knows there's something about the Carl Powers case. For the first time in years he plays an upbeat melody of his own making, it sounds frustrated, but it's different. He’s challenged and he’s having fun. Everyone who passes his room stops for a heartbeat to listen, to listen to the complaints and excitement of a 16 year old boy through a violin. He conveys frustration over incompetence and stupidity, excitement over finally having found something captivating, and all other things that a boy his age shouldn't. On his mind there should be girls, sports, a slight worry for the future, but there isn't. Instead there’s mysteries and murder, a place to finally utilise all that knowledge he’s stored away over the years. It's a relief for his parents, having yet another child they don't need to talk to over the matter of boys that age. They consider it a blessing.  
When he eventually finds his plans for the future, invents it rather, it is nothing like anyone had hoped or thought it would be. He will not follow his father and brother in the pursuit of power like his family expects him to. Neither will he become a psychopathic killer, much to the disappointment of the majority of his classmates who had placed their money in the bet as such. He decides to become a consulting detective. He can choose his own work, what cases he wishes to take on, consult in. Ever since then she helps him think as well, vents his mind when he needs to do so to something other than a skull (though Cromwell is the best of companions with human traits he could ask for). The melodies calm from the frustration, but never quite go back to the darkness from his earlier years when boredom and exclusion coloured them in misery. He still mixes, but more and more becomes his own. The compositions he saved escape the deleting process again and again, in the end they get their own little corner in his mind manor (it has yet to reach its full potential, but it’s getting there), and he likes it like that. Sheets of music tacked to the wall with pegs, and four long strings running taut from floor to ceiling.

***

During his drug use he puts her up on a shelf, neatly tucked away in her case, and doesn't bring her down for months. She was safest up there, away from him. He didn't trust himself even if he knew he was in control, didn’t trust his mind and fingers to taint her and play her while he was not strictly himself. He doesn't want her to see him like that anyways, but he doesn't let himself know. He just needs it, needs the calm quiet clearness, and she doesn’t help like that. She is a continuous stream from his mind to his fingers to the strings, but there is never such clarity. She collects dust in her case, unused. He forgets about her, like the time he was 5 and had just seen one like her, but she never leaves his mind. She has rooted herself far too deeply to ever be dislodged even if he tried. She is a familiar presence when the world is chaotic.  
It's only after he's clean that he trusts himself enough to take her down again. He blows the dust off, and plays for the first time in what feels like forever. It’s long enough at least, only a few months but he feels like he’s betrayed her. He couldn’t keep it up, not with what it eventually did to him. What he plays is similar to the darkness of his childhood, but now holds a side more frightening, one so different from his childhood innocence. Insanity is almost how he explains it, but it is the opposite of loosing his mind. It is like finding it a million times clearer, faster, he sees so much of what is truly there but it eats away at him. He says sorry, begs for forgiveness by restoring her to her full glory, and she plays for him, as beautiful as ever. When he itches for the relief of the syringe, he picks her up and places her on his shoulder, she fits comfortably now in the groove between arm and neck like an extension of himself. He plays whatever comes to mind, but it is too often desperation to be a coincidence. She soothes him, and eventually it leaves him again.

***

It’s on his way up to Sherlock’s flat for the sixth time in one week that he finally hears him play. Lestrade doesn’t realise it’s him playing until he opens the door and actually sees him. Sherlock seems like the kind of person who enjoys classical music, and so Lestrade thinks it’s a CD playing until the tall man stands before him, violin in place and bow and fingers rapidly moving across the strings. And had he really thought Sherlock looked like the kind of person to own a CD player? It sounds like chasing criminals in alleys and crap coffee at the yard, like adrenalin, mayhem, puzzles. It sounds like Sherlock in musical form, leaking into the air from the strings. Lestrade stands in silent awe and simply watches the mad genius before him preform for an audience consisting of a skull and three broken teacups. Sherlock’s flat is too small for his person, for his very aura. He will move soon, move to a proper home where the walls don’t remind him of a time without her. Of the time where Lestrade had found him after he had gotten involved in a police case, high as a kite. It comes as no surprise that Lestrade has not noticed the violin on the shelf during this time, but neither does it surprise him that a man such as Sherlock plays such a refined instrument. He is talented as well, and as the song draws to a close and Sherlock turns to address him in the condescending way he does out of habit, Lestrade hopes he will catch Sherlock unguarded, playing his violin outside of a case, if only to hear what she will have to say about him when he is not caught up by the thrill of murder.

***

 

It is a couple of months later that Lestrade bribes (read; forces) Sherlock into promising to play his violin at the Christmas party at the yard in two weeks’ time. He gets Sherlock to swear on his own head that he will be there for at least 20 minutes, and play one song (of his own choosing or he would simply walk out of that office case be damned) before he could leave. Sherlock is reluctant because she is his to play for himself, he is not one to put on a show and play for an audience of actual people instead of inanimate objects. However he agrees, and two weeks later he finds himself at the yard, violin case in hand. Lestrade greets him and follows him in from his own cigarette break. They’ve put up a microphone and stereo, karaoke plans for later when everybody is a bit over the top merry on eggnog, and Lestrade leads Sherlock to the designated “stage” area. He grabs the microphone and makes a short introduction that goes something along the lines of explaining he has gotten Sherlock Holmes to play one of his original pieces for them tonight, please enjoy, with Sherlock following up adding he has been brought here against his will but he will try to withstand the severe idiocy of mundane celebratory customs clogging the air. It’s all rather quiet after that, with a lot of displeased faces and an equal amount of glares sent both Sherlock’s and Lestarde’s way.  
Then Sherlock sets his case down on a chair, and with all eyes in the room trained on him he opens it and withdraws his violin with the care he always shows her, which to all yarders present is like seeing him don a rainbow wig (a.k.a. completely out of character). He checks that she is tuned and places her in one fluid motion onto his shoulder, and the pure belonging it seems to radiate once it is present does not go unnoticed by anyone. As he places the bow on the strings he scans the two story wall of his mindpalace dedicated to the music he knows, trying to find one that will fit. He decides case, but the aftermath of a case, the part where he can see the entire puzzle laid out before him, everything neatly in place and so clear. The joy when that final piece falls into place and he sees it, sees it all in its whole and full glory. He decides it’ll be upbeat enough for a party (he does have some social skills, thank you very much, you don’t grow up in a Holmes home without them), but him enough not to be ridiculed. It starts quickly, it cascades and quickens before it settles into content and tea and much needed binge sleeping after four days of wakefulness. It never sounds calm however, she cannot show them his calmness for it is not theirs to know, so she doesn’t. She shows all who listens her genius boy, and they listen intently. When he is done he places her in her case with the same carefulness and elegancy, before he picks the case up and promptly leaves. As he makes for the door sudden applause follow him, but he pays it no mind. Refuses to sink so low as to think he needs their approval. This is the first and last time all of Scotland Yard hear him play, and he ensures it never happens again (to their never stated displeasure).

 

***

On the chilly January night he has finally moved into 221b Baker Street for good he plays a melody that starts out tentative, like it’s trying to sneak into every corner and crevice before he picks up pace and lets her introduce him to his new home. She plays the never ending rush of genius that will soon come to hang in the very air of the flat, it’s like a warning but mostly it is to say ‘we are home’. Down in 221a Mrs Hudson is sat with a cuppa, and she listens to her new tenant, to the man who ensured her husbands death, and she hears his character as he plays it into the very walls. She thinks she’s going to grow older much faster with him around, but she believes she will be very happy about it nonetheless.  
Mrs Hudson never tells him, but she's sure he can see it on her that she enjoys the cheerful ones he will sometimes play. And he never says, but is sure she knows, that he plays them for her as wordless ‘thank you’ s when he knows she puts up with too much from him. It is to say he appreciates it, but it does not say sorry, for he is not. It is whom he is, and she has ever only been able to play the truth about him. Mrs Hudson never mistakes them for apologies. It's a wordless agreement that both can live with, and her, his violin, is happy to play for both him and Mrs Hudson. She cherishes the landlady as much as Sherlock does. 

***

Then along comes John. Sherlock had mentioned he played the violin, but he had never said anything about what he played, neither exactly when, but one got used to that. The first time John hears Sherlock play, it is a piece he doesn't recognize, and neither does Mrs Hudson when he asks her. Sherlock hears it for the fist time as he plays it. In his head he names it 'John', and he gives it a drawer in a room that is slowly forming in his mindpalace, decked with Afghan sand in blood red sun, walls of medical diagrams and gun models. He never writes it down, but it changes as time goes by. He keeps all the versions of it, the early one that said "the flatmate who called me amazing and killed for me", to the one that said "the friend who is amazing, who is willing to kill for me and who runs after me all over London, who trusts", because that's what John becomes over time. She plays them all, dutifully and he cares for her like he always has. Treats her in such a way that everyone who knows him and sees him with her almost can't believe their eyes when they see it for the first time.  
He still plays her as he thinks, but less now that John has come along. Sometimes he plays at 3 am like he used to always do, but now it's to ponder things. He always plays the composition he named 'John'. He plucks the latest version out from the cabinet (it grew over time, needed more space for the other versions), and he plays it until it changes again. It is a much of a flux as his perception of John is.

***

He only lets her play for the people who get close. Those he cannot rid his palace of, because they are constant and the impact. The earliest was Mycroft (his parents too absent to play a role in his growing up). It’s ridiculed power with a stiff upper lip, soft around the edges because Mycroft is too, and Sherlock grew up with only him to talk to in those early years. Affection was expected, no matter how much he has buried it since he was four and Mycroft would be the only one to take time to put plasters on his scraped knees.  
So many years pass and he does not trust himself to let people touch his music like Mycroft had. It is too much a part of him, and he needs to keep them at a distance, or else it would seem like the closed doors they presented him with bothered him. They hate him, all his peers, because he can see them for what and who they are. Years pass before he meets the next person to worm their way so close that they impact his music. It’s Lestrade and a melody of cases and relief and excitement brought back to life again. He chooses not to acknowledge the small note of gratitude buried beneath the adrenalin of cases, because that would be admitting, and he never does that.  
Mrs Hudson is no surprise, she dotes and makes tea, she fusses when he doesn’t eat and is the mother figure he believes lacked from his life. He thinks he managed fine without one, certainly didn’t miss one not need one now. But she likes him, and he likes her, grows affectionate (and isn’t that just fantastic). The tunes he plays for her tinges her own piece, sweet like tea and biscuits, fussy frills and golden cores. He plays soft for her, because she is, and he suspects it’s rubbing off on him in small amounts, at least towards her. He refuses to admit that the damage of furniture has severely decreased since he moved in.  
Then there’s John, and John is such complex one in and of itself that he can never make sense of it. Apparently she does, because she plays with conviction and such confidence, and he trusts her as he always has. Stinging heat of the desert weighed down with soldier gear and blood, limping then smooth running, leaping across rooftops and gunfire echoing between buildings. Trust, friendship in the shape of adrenaline molecules, and steely confidence wrapped in a soft jumper. Unassuming at first but so much more.  
A while passes before the next, and the next is Moriarty. But it’s different this time. He doesn’t close in on his non-existent heart like the others, he slithers his way around Sherlock’s mind like a snake wrapping itself around its prey. She plays a song of puzzles and games soaked in blood and fire, distance from human lives with puppet strings. The melody ends up exciting and eventful, full of chasing leads, a small part of the frustration from the Carl Powers case seep into it, like water into lungs. The eventual product is played one final time before he sets out for the pool (somehow a small part of 'John' seeped into the end, he didn't understand why, but he refuses to acknowledge it after having set John out the door).  
'John' changes again after the pool, as is to be expected, a new emotion twines in and out of the notes, he can't identify it, but it sounds like loyalty. It's a very strong loyalty, and Sherlock is amazed at how well she plays something that is so unknown to himself. He does not recognise his answer, can’t tell for sure, but it all rings with truthfulness, and for once he cannot find it in himself to push the emotions away as he is so prone to doing. They are too true, he thinks, too real now.  
He plays once for The Woman, and it sounds different in his head. Stark and simple, yet deceptive. Trickery and repaid favours in the glinting of swords and hidden in black fabric. He tucks it away in a cupboard, along with all else about her, it seals up and fades into the background, but it never disappears.  
***

He misses her. He misses her dearly while in Baskerville and wishes he'd brought her along. He seeks refuge in alcohol, and it is horrible. In his head she plays new songs for him. She plays new versions of 'John' and something so full of fear that nightmares from dark nights when he was young comes back. Not fully, only the feelings, dread and loneliness in the darkness and the chill of the turned shoulders. The scowls. They are enough to shake him to the core as the cold settles in his bones.  
In the end of course he solves it, it is nothing other than a normal dog, nothing more than drugs having yet again altered his brain, his thinking. It’s all so simple in the end, but they have both been changed by this ordeal.  
When he gets back he plays the new version of 'John', and when he reaches the loyalty bit, he finds that there is now an answer from him to Johns loyalty. He has his own loyalty towards John, it rings strong and true in his own ears and it feels like she is yelling at him in triumph, like she knew all along (he refuses to acknowledge the need there, buried deep beneath the sand of Afghanistan and sun soaked courage).

***

The last time John hears him play, it's 2am. Sherlock is pacing and playing, but the melody is soft. When John sits up in bed to listen, the music changes. It turns even softer, almost into a lullaby. John is too sleepy to notice, but he falls back against his pillow and lets it send him off into sleep again. She whispers "Sleep John" at Sherlock’s command, and John sleeps. Sherlock knows he'll need his rest for the coming days, but even he doesn't know how much. Not yet. He could walk away from this o worse for wear, or he could ruin himself in the process, he knows every possible outcome, but it all depends on Moriarty now, and he is too unpredictable to know for sure. There are 32 possible outcomes, and he hopes he will not have to see John hurt, as is the case in 21 of them.  
He plays 'John' over again, and tries desperately not to let the notes of 'Moriarty' sneak into it. He refuses to let it touch 'John', can’t see his friend mix and mingle with his enemy, for they are enemies now. The melody gets a protective edge, and for once he's not sure if it's from him or from John. She knows it's from both, and she plays it for both, her boys will need it no matter the outcome.

***

On the edges of sleep, right before he leaves his dreams completely, he hears Sherlock playing downstairs. It's always a version of 'John', although he doesn't know, never will. When he fully wakes the music disappears, and John fights not to break down. He straightens his back and marches around the flat in a soldier like manner, arms and legs stiff, spine rigid. When he goes downstairs he sees the violin, in her case on the shelf he’d placed her on.  
He hears the same music, standing outside the door to their, no, his flat. Tesco bag in hand he flings the door open, and the music stops. He marches into the kitchen and puts everything away. He opens the fridge, and his mind supplies body parts here and there. But he knows there's nothing left in it. Nothing that shouldn’t yet should but isn’t there. He never though he’d miss staring at toes as he prepares breakfast.  
Sometimes he sees Sherlock in the window. He'll be walking in the street and he'll look up, and Sherlock stands there and plays. He ran the first time it happened, but not anymore. Now he walks calmly, he hears the music as he comes up the stairs, but it all stops when he opens the door. Sherlock isn't there, and the violin is in its case on the shelf. It ends up on top of some cardboard boxes, and he refuses to look at anything of it where it stands in the corner of the flat, then migrates into the downstairs bedroom. It collects dust, and Mrs Hudson says one day that it's been over 2 years, and shouldn't they move it out of the flat? But he refuses, he can't and he won't. And secretly, she is relieved, because she never thought she’d outlive him, can’t stand that she did and can’t bear to think about it.

***

It's just like any other day, a year after all that happened, he's walking back from Tesco and he looks up. He sees Sherlock in the window, playing his violin. He keeps walking in his normal pace (now with a cane and limp, but a stiffness to it still, the drills never did quite leave the corners of his mind). He walks up the stairs and hears the music, he stops in front of the door to listen. He sighs, trying to imagine that Sherlock will be there when he opens the door for once. He sighs and pushes the door open. The music doesn't stop. He looks to the window, and Sherlock turns, still playing. He doesn't look any different. Coat and scarf all in place, and his black curls hasn't grown a single inch. John drops his Tesco bag and falls to his knees. The music stops and he hears Mrs Hudson on the stairs. She comes in behind him and she sounds so worried. She asks what it is and if he needs a doctor and he wants to cry and laugh at the same time, she reminds him of his mother one warm summer day when he fell out of a tree. He says he's fine. Sherlock's gone, the violin is in its case, on the cardboard boxes in the other room. He ushers her out, and she says she'll make him a cuppa this once, but do keep in mind she's not his housekeeper. The familiar words both help and don’t, but he is grateful for her, she has a heart of gold that woman, and he knows it’s taken it’s toll on her as well, and he isn’t helping.  
It only happens twice more over the span of 4 months, then it all stops for good.

***

It hasn't happened for a year and a half, but when he sees Sherlock in the window again his chest tightens and something in his guts twists. He continues and flings the door open, he marches up the stairs and listens to the music become louder as he gets closer to the door. He stops, listens for just a second, finding so much relief in pretending but knowing that it will crush him once he realises that he isn’t there, before he gently pushes the door open. He steps in and Sherlock turns. It's too much like the other times and he breaks down once more. He takes a few steps and falls forward. It feels like a deja vu. When his knees hit the floor the music stops. He looks up, but Sherlock is still there. He can't see his expression through blurred eyes, and he yells at the outline of Sherlock, asks him why he tortures him so. Tears fall and Sherlock steps forward, for once he lets her go, his cherished violin, but she has forgiven him even before his fingers have completely left her. She lands safely on the carpet, and Sherlock lands on his knees in front of John. He embraces him and John stiffens before he eventually blacks out, it’s all too much. Sherlock places him on the sofa and picks her up once more, he continues the newest version of 'John'. It begs for forgiveness and lays his heart bare.

***

John wakes up to the violin, and he almost thinks it's just another trick of his mind. Until he realizes he doesn't recognize the melody. He sits up and finds himself on the sofa, Sherlock sitting in his chair and playing. He gets up, a bit unsteady, but determined. He takes in Sherlock’s appearance, shaggy hair and tired eyes. Sherlock in turn takes him in, stiff yet broken. He stops and puts her down preparing for the inevitable. He had expected the blow to his cheek, didn't mean it didn't hurt. What he didn't expect was the kiss that followed. He whispers against John’s lips, how he had to and he's sorry. But John understands, and it’s okay. John says it’s all fine and Sherlock laughs at the familiarity of it all. Laughs like he hasn’t in three years.  
Later John asks him to finish what he was playing. He does, and for once John hears the message she relays directly from Sherlock’s heart to his. Sherlock plays the final version of 'John', and notes that reflect apologies and adorations and above all love echoes through the flat. Mrs Hudson comes up with tea and they drink tea and eat biscuits as Sherlock tells of his adventure and what needs to be done next. A certain colonel needs taking care of, he announces with an enthusiastic wave of a biscuit in his hand. John feels like breaking down all over again, but this time in relief.


End file.
